On Wednesday, June 12, 2013, the NARGS Forum will be closed, for transition to the new NARGS.ORG web site. The NARGS Forum as we know it will be very different, using a web-based interface instead of the SMF forum software familiar to NARGS and SRGC forum users.

Regarding NARGS Forum logins, I've been provided with the following information: all current NARGS Forum users, whether a NARGS member or not, will maintain their original USERNAME and PASSWORD with which to login. Any NARGS forumist wishing to change their password can do so by clicking the login link and select the "request new password" tab. As before, people not already members of NARGS Forum can request a password to log in.

My understanding is the functionality and capabilities of the new web-based NARGS Forum, are comparable to what we had previously. No doubt there will be some edits and tweaks necessary to get things converted over and running smoothly. Please bear with us during this transition; I'm along for the ride, as are our Moderators, as fearless explorers without much knowledge of what's in store ahead of us; the forum just being a piece of the much larger overhaul of the entire NARGS.ORG web site.

I've made a strong effort to stay out of the way on this rather remarkable process, but at this point a few comments from me are appropriate.First, we all need to understand how much work has been VOLUNTEERED by Ben Burr, Daniel Dillon, Mark McDonough, Malcolm and several others. Their efforts have been essential to the success of this project, and they all deserve our thanks. Second, as the new site gets going, we're all going to discover how much new 'stuff' we're going to have to play with. Make sure you visit frequently, and spend some time just moving around the site, checking out the resources we're making available to all rock gardeners, all over the world. And finally, this has been a NARGS project, funded by NARGS members, but it won't be limited to NARGS members. But unless some of you that take advantage of our benefits actually join the organization, we're going to face increasing financial challenges in the near term. So consider (seriously consider!) joining. We'll all be better off for it.

Peter

Peter George, Petersham, MA (north central MA, close to the NH/VT borders), zones 5b and 6 around the property.

I love the fact pictures ,up to 3, appear side by side and it appears that the quality of the pics is clearer ....or is that my imagination ....(can't find the smiley button yet).

Cheers Dave.

We could have any number of photos side-by-side before. There are a bunch of things that need to be addressed in this new web-based NARGS Forum to address how to do certain things, like how best to post photos, how to regain (if possible) some functionality we had in the old SMF NARGS Forum that is missing here, and iron out the wrinkles, such as the fact there is no way to get to one's message inbox except to falsely start a new personal message to some user, and once that action is invoked, one can actually get to their "inbox", "sent messages", etc... try to get to your messages directly, it currently seems impossible (the link to one's inbox needs to be added). I like you optimism Dave, but personally, I'm not very happy with the change.

Since January, NARGS has contracted with Blazej Owczarczyk for web development. He quickly identified and repaired the programming error that lead to delays in the seed exchange program for some users. He and Daniel are responsible for the smooth functioning of the program in the surplus round of the seed exchange and the registration page for the upcoming Santa Fe AGM. I am sure that you will be pleased when you try it yourself.

Daniel has communicated easily with Blazej and his time estimates for work have been very good. He has been very responsive and works until a job has been completed. Among other tasks, he has allowed us to register secondary members and correct a number of errors created by the previous developers.

So is Monarch completely out of the picture? If so this is probably good. I think they sold us all a bag of goods because it sure seems like the website has more problems than it should have. Our website certainly doesn't work as well as it should on my Ipad. In particular I have problems with the drop down menus.

Is there a list of problems Blazej is going to fix? Improvements he'll implement? It's good to know he's good at follow thru and completion. I just hope I never have to try to figure out how to pronounce his last name!

I won't be going to Santa Fe. We're leaving in less than two weeks for three weeks in Europe so asking for another trip would be a bit greedy.

How does one contact Blazej to report site problems, that is, does he look in at this site regularly, or should he be contacted by some other means, e.g. e-mail?

I just documented another site glitch in the Administrator's message area (when a thread is split off into a new topic, all the photos in the first posting of the new topic are lost. (This seems somewhat reminiscent of what happened when the forum went to this new software - the photos in the first posting in most threads were lost.) Anyway, it would be greatly appreciated if it could be fixed, and even better if the photos could be restored if possible.